The optim() function has trouble calculating derivatives at/near the boundary,
because it is using a simplistic finite-difference formula centered on the
parameter. optimx::optimr() may work better.
-pd
> On 26 Apr 2020, at 09:02 , Abby Spurdle <spurdl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I ran your example.
> It's possible that it's another bug in the optim function.
>
> Here's the optim call (from within fitdistr):
>
> stats::optim(x = c(1, 4, 1, 2, 3, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1,
> 1, 1, 1, 4, 4, 3, 1, 2, 2, 1, 1, 3, 1, 1, 1, 4, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, #more lines...
> 1, 4, 1, 1, 1, 5, 5, 5, 4, 5, 2, 5, 5, 5, 5, 3, 3, 5, 4, 5, 2, #removed...
> 4, 5, 5), topn = 5, lower = lwr, par = list(alpha = 1.010652,
> beta = 1.929018), fn = function(parm, ...) -sum(log(dens(parm, ...))),
> hessian = TRUE, method = "L-BFGS-B")
>
> And here's dens:
>
> function (parm, x, ...)
> densfun(x, parm[1], parm[2], ...)
>
> I can't see any reason why it should call dens with parm[1] < lower[1].
>
> On Sun, Apr 26, 2020 at 5:50 PM Abby Spurdle <spurdl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I haven't run your example.
>> I may try tomorrow-ish if no one else answers.
>>
>> But one question: Are you sure the "x" and "i" are correct in your function?
>> It looks like a typo...
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Apr 26, 2020 at 2:14 PM Rolf Turner <r.tur...@auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> For some reason fitdistr() does not seem to be passing on the "..."
>>> argument "lower" to optim() in the proper manner, and as result
>>> falls over.
>>>
>>> Here is my example; note that data are attached in the file "x.txt".
>>>
>>> dhse <- function(i,alpha,beta,topn) {
>>> x <- seq(0,1,length=topn+2)[-c(1,topn+2)]
>>> p <- dbeta(x,alpha,beta)
>>> if(any(!is.finite(p))) browser()
>>> (p/sum(p))[i]
>>> }
>>>
>>> lwr <- rep(sqrt(.Machine$double.eps),2)
>>> par0 <- c(alpha=1.010652,beta=1.929018)
>>> x <- dget("x.txt")
>>> fit <- MASS::fitdistr(x,densfun=dhse,topn=5,start=as.list(par0),
>>> lower=lwr)
>>>
>>> The browser() in dhse() allows you to see that alpha has gone negative,
>>> taking a value:
>>>
>>>> alpha
>>>> -0.001999985
>>>
>>> Continuing causes fitdistr() to fall over with the error message:
>>>
>>>> Error in stats::optim(x = c(1, 4, 1, 2, 3, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, :
>>>> non-finite finite-difference value [1]
>>>
>>> If I eschew using fitdistr() and "roll-my-own" as follows:
>>>
>>> foo <- function(par,x,topn){-sum(log(dhse(i=x,alpha=par[1],
>>> beta=par[2],
>>> topn=topn)))}
>>>
>>> fit <- optim(par0,fn=foo,method="L-BFGS-B",lower=lwr,topn=5,x=x)
>>>
>>> then optim() returns a result without complaint.
>>>
>>> Am I somehow messing up the syntax for fitdistr()?
>>>
>>> cheers,
>>>
>>> Rolf Turner
>>>
>>> P. S. I've tried supplying the "method" argument, method="L-BFGS-B"
>>> explicitly to fitdistr(); doesn't seem to help.
>>>
>>> R.T.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Honorary Research Fellow
>>> Department of Statistics
>>> University of Auckland
>>> Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276
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>>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
--
Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Phone: (+45)38153501
Office: A 4.23
Email: pd....@cbs.dk Priv: pda...@gmail.com
______________________________________________
R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
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PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
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